In many situations, soft tissue may need to be attached (or re-attached) to bone. As an example, a ligament or tendon may have been detached from bone as the result of injury, and appropriate repair may require re-attaching the ligament or tendon to its host bone. The use of sutures together with one or more suture anchors is one way of attaching soft tissue to bone. Suture anchors generally include a body that is deployed in bone with one or more sutures extending from the body. The sutures may then be used to secure the soft tissue to the bone, e.g., by passing the sutures through the tissue and then knotting the suture so as to hold the tissue in position relative to the bone.
Certain prior art suture anchors have eyelets extending from the proximal end that require countersinking of the eyelet below the bone surface to avoid having the patient's tissue abrade against the exposed eyelet. However, this countersinking can make the suture attached to the eyelet vulnerable to abrasion. To avoid countersinking and abrasion, threaded suture anchors have been developed which have a transverse anchor pin disposed inside the body of the suture anchor. The pin provides a support over which a suture can be looped and secured in a recessed fashion within the anchor.
Many such suture anchors are configured such that the sutures need to be attached to the suture anchor either at the time of manufacture or in the operating room prior to use. In either case, the sutures are attached to the body of the suture anchor prior to deployment of the suture anchor in the body. As a result, a surgeon may be constrained by the configuration of the suture anchor once it has been deployed in the body. In other words, with many suture anchor constructions, the number and types of sutures selected by the surgeon prior to deployment in the bone significantly constrains the choices available to the surgeon after the suture anchor has been deployed in the bone. This can be a significant limitation since, in many circumstances, the surgeon may wish to adjust a procedure in response to tissue conditions, which may only become apparent after the procedure has commenced.
One suture anchor that permits sutures to be loaded into the suture anchor after the suture anchor has been deployed in the bone is disclosed in U.S. Publication No. 2009/0088798 by Snyder et al. The suture anchor utilizes a flexible pin or crossbar extending across an axial recess of the anchor such that when a distally directed force is applied to the crossbar, a suture may be passed by the crossbar, and when a proximally directed force is applied to the suture, the crossbar is captured, thereby capturing the suture.
It would be advantageous if a suture anchor having a recessed, rigid pin or crossbar could be threaded with one or more sutures after the suture anchor has been deployed in the bone. The inventive concepts disclosed herein are directed to such a suture threader and suture anchor assembly.